Pushing Back Against the Jane Doe Pushback
Public outrage over the treatment by Cornell University and the Tompkins County District Attorney’s Office of former student Jane Doe’s sexual assault allegations against seven Chi Phi fraternity members has swept the nation.
On Monday, October 5th, Cornell students rallied for a “Justice for Survivors” protest on Ho Plaza, demanding stronger punishments for the accused men and changes to how the university handles complaints of sexual assault. Earlier on Monday around 3:00 a.m., vandals smashed a glass door at the entrance of Day Hall, and graffitied on nearby walls the phrases “SMASH THE PATRIARCHY” and “AT CORNELL [,] RAPISTS ARE PROTECTED PROTESTORS ARE EXPELLED.”
Beyond the campus, alumni are pledging to withhold donations from their alma mater, while political activists campaign against New York’s rape law—insisting that it punishes intoxicated victims of sexual abuse. Online, high school students are removing Cornell from their college application list, with parents being no less vocal about their concerns for sending their children off to the once esteemed Ivy League school.
But are these reactions justified? Not yet.
District Attorney Matthew Van Houten announced in his September 28th press release that he would be reopening the investigation into “whether to pursue criminal charges against the seven fraternity members.” Governor Kathy Hochul appointed New York Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor on October 1st. Therefore, it is now an open legal question whether the depraved acts of October 19th, 2024, were consensual debauchery or sexual abuse warranting criminal prosecution.
Instead of recklessly destroying Cornell and the seven Chi Phi fraternity members, both physically and with respect to their reputations, I am offering that we should wait patiently for any new evidence to surface and for an official legal verdict to be determined.
While it is entirely natural to empathize with women who report sexual abuse, common sense and example after example show that a mere claim alone does not establish truth with certainty—the claim must be accompanied by evidence. It is by no means inconceivable that there exist confused people who reinterpret their shameful actions after the fact, as well as malicious slanderers who lie seeking revenge, fame, or fortune. Remember Crystal Mangum in 2006? She accused three members of Duke University’s men’s lacrosse team of rape, permanently altering their lives, before admitting that she fabricated the allegations 18 years later in 2024.
To be clear, I am not doubting the veracity of Jane Doe, nor comparing her to Crystal Mangum, nor suggesting that we should doubt all women in their positions. Again, the prudent course of action is to wait patiently and peacefully while the new investigation proceeds, uninterrupted. Believe it or not, there is no correlation between vandalizing Day Hall and the emergence of new incriminating evidence; but there is a correlation between vandalism and being arrested.
Furthermore, the responses of Cornell University and D.A. Houten in 2024 were entirely reasonable—public backlash seems to have stemmed both from online misinformation as well as feminists just being moody that a woman was not taken at her word.
Rumors have spread that Cornell only required the seven men to write reflective essays as punishment, but the university denies this claim, stating that it “issued a range of sanctions, which included expulsions and suspensions from Cornell.” In addition, Cornell closed the involved fraternity chapter in 2024 before instituting the Presidential Task Force on Campus Sexual Assault in Spring 2025 in order to develop “a holistic public health framework for addressing sexual assault at Cornell.”
The media is also framing the Cornell University Police Department (CUPD) as having nefariously omitted the claims “I don’t remember the very end of the event where I was raped” and “I can say with 100 percent confidence that I was raped,” which were present in Jane Doe’s police interview transcript, from the six-page summary received by the DOA. We must remember, however, that Jane Doe herself endorsed this summary through her willing signature, so it is far from settled that the CUPD betrayed her and rewrote her story in order to protect the Chi Phi fraternity members.
D.A. Houten defended his own actions in his recent September 28th press release, stating that the seven Chi Phi members were not criminally prosecuted in 2024 because “Jane Doe’s sworn statement in November of 2024 did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang raped. On the contrary, Jane Doe’s statement described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual.” Houten determined that the statement received by the DOA from the CUPD simply did not indicate that the sexual relations between Jane Doe and the seven fraternity members warranted prosecution.
Victims of sexual assault deserve vindication while their abusers deserve severe legal punishment. The key point to remember is that until the new investigation has concluded and an official verdict has been rendered from new evidence, none of us onlookers across the country can know if Jane Doe is a victim of sexual assault or if the seven Chi Phi fraternity brothers are guilty as accused. Let’s slow down in the meantime and remember that every person involved is still a human being made in the image of God, worthy of our charity.
